Emily the Strange: Planning
by the Raven of Roses
Summary: Emily has a plan for the people who join her site.  A plan that could prove very bad news for the human race as a whole.  The question isn't if, it's when.
1. Zero: Emily

6-13-07

((Author's note: Whew! It's been a long time since I've done this. I apologize to those of you who were waiting on an update to another fandom, but this idea popped into my head awhile ago that just SCREAMS for an outlet. As I sit typing this on my horrid computer what does not connect to the Interweb, I realize I have no idea whether an Emily the Strange category yet exists on ffn. Ah well. More apologies for what I am about to do, though I think the personality changes to characters I've borrowed from the Emily universe are perfectly logical and not so much changes as they are amplifications of certain characteristics in them that were not fully explored by their creators. And stuff. So please enjoy this little romp in the Strange and wonderful fandom that is Emily. ::RavenOfRoses:: ))

((Disclaimer: For a more comprehensive list of what I do and don't own, see my profile. If it's not there, wait a day or two. I might not get around to putting it up immediately.))

--Zero: Emily--

_Name: Emily Strange (alias?)_

_Age/DOB: 13; 14 next Friday the 13th_

_Height: Atypical_

_Weight: approx. equal to teen angst_

_Eyes: Black (sometimes red)_

_Hair: Black, long_

_Notes: Subject shows no signs of normal human conscience, thinks nothing of causing harm to others in the pursuit of her own amusement. Use extreme caution when subject has acquired slingshot; has been known to incapacitate full-grown persons with said weapon. Takes four cats as familiars; also be wary of them. Very loyal to subject, WILL ATTACK. Has a penchant for strawberries and Miles Davis. Very fond of highly toxic hybrid plants._

Emily scrolled through a thread on her website's message board. A smile played over her lips as she caught sight of the topic once more: _Is there a real Emily out there?_

Most of the posters had the grammar and spelling of a three-year-old, but that was to be expected. Popularity inevitably drew a certain number of these drones. (Of course, she couldn't complain: they would make for good toadies later on.) Most of these nonthinkers rehashed each others' words, almost all of which ran along the lines of "she gotta be out there, why they make books bout her if she ain't out there?" Emily scrolled faster, noting a particularly nasty clump of these posts, but she froze when a succinct reply to one of these drones caught her eye.

_You're all rather stupid, aren't you? Not every book out there has a real person as the main character. And you know, if there IS a real Emily and she's reading this thread, she's probably added the lot of you to her hit list by now._

It was signed "SilenceIsLouder," but surprisingly, Emily didn't recognize the username. She quickly logged onto her personal account, LiveStrange, and clicked "reply."

_I agree wholeheartedly _she typed, fingers flying over the keyboard. _But she would still need people like them because they are easily manipulated and would provide a good source of manpower. Or womanpower, if that should be more apt._

She posted the reply, then opened a new window so she could scan other threads as she waited for a response. One thread, "World Domination," looked promising but offered nothing but jesting plots to take over children's broadcasting and bribe world leaders into puppet governments. None of the plans were detailed, plausible, even feasible. A new mailer would be needed soon, she knew that from the sorry state of these posts.

_Would she really be that cruel?_ It took a moment for Emily to realize that she was looking at a reply. She hovered between opening a private chat with the girl--she was certain it was a girl--and just sticking to a traditional message board convo. Her fingers moved of their own accord, and it was another post to the message board.

_Yes. I do think so._

Emily sat and looked at this reply for a long time before she sent it. A small ripple of uneasiness drifted through her head and was quickly squelched before it could cause any trouble.

One click later, and it was posted. SilenceIsLouder would not send a reply; this she knew. The finality was too sharp for there to be any further discussion. In a few minutes, Emily knew she would follow through with her usual policy by deleting the entire thread she'd posted on. A bit of a shame to erase the unknown girl's words, but Emily had to cover her tracks.

In the meantime, she thought she'd poke around in this person's account. Her usual password brought up her target's complete stats. Member for almost as long as the message board had been around, was one of the few to have their account transferred to the new system when everything was updated. She'd been asked to be a moderator several times on grounds of seniority, but each time she refused. Emily couldn't figure out why until she checked the girl's post log. She'd spoken no more than two dozen times in all the years she had been with the site, and five of her posts had been made to the thread Emily was seconds away from deleting.

Emily paused. Delete nearly a fourth of the girl's posts? Another moment, and she brought up the thread again. _Delete thread?_ it blinked. Emily nodded and clicked _yes._

"Well that's done," she sighed to herself, leaning back in the computer chair and giving her arms a good stretch.

One of her cats wandered over to see what she was doing. Emily chuckled to herself at its lack of subtlety but let her hand stray to the creature's ear all the same. The black car arched its back in its own stretch and glanced at the computer screen. Seeing nothing interesting, it yawned and wandered off again.

"I should get working on that mailer," Emily murmured to no one in particular, and she turned back to the computer with a small smile on her face.


	2. One: Silence

((Note: The following is NOT a self-insertion. Anything typed from the POV of an OC is from THAT CHARACER'S view, not the view of their creator. That said, hope you liked the first chapter, and here's hoping you enjoy this one. ::Raven:: ))

--One: Silence--

When I first got into the whole "Emily the Strange" thing, I figured it was going to be one of those underground fads that flares up briefly before fading into smoke and graveyard babble. I'd spotted the self-titled book in one of those chain stores, hiding amongst self-help books and cheap horror novellas in the "New Arrivals" section. This was way back during my formative years, back when I was just a normal little impressionable girl with ribbons in her hair and a pair of round glasses fixed over barely-functioning eyes. I'd spent too much time reading in my dim room as a small child, so these glasses--prescribed when I was just six years old and a major factor in my subsequent isolation from my peers--were a necessity in my being able to see anything at all. I didn't even take them off when I slept; I panicked once after they fell from my nightstand one night and I was late for school the next morning because of the frantic search required to recover them.

Anyway, I credit my glasses for my initial discovery of Emily and all she represents. See, I'd taken my glasses off to clean them when their curved lenses captured the fire-engine red on a book cover. I quickly fixed the glasses to my nose again and turned to find the source of the red.

A swift leafing through its pages stirred something strange in me. Strange with a capital S, if you please. Suddenly, with the words "seeing is deceiving," the little girl disappeared, and a Stranger quietly stepped in to take her place.

I realize I'm being rather long-winded. Sorry about that, but I tend to get carried away with these things.

At any rate, I bought the book and secreted myself away in my suddenly very pastel-seeming room. In the swirl of reworked cliches and plays on words, I found hidden an insidiously sweet code, a mantra I later found in another one of Emily's texts: Be All You Can't Be.

Fast-forward eight years. I sat in my room once more, surrounded by posters and drawings and prints of macabre artwork. The walls underneath still carried the remnants of the heady scent of paint even though I'd covered the pink with black way back on my thirteenth birthday. My computer hummed contentedly as I went back to surfing the net, bored of my interactions with some chick on a message board.

The Emily site had sure gone downhill since I'd joined not long after its creation. Nowadays, most of the people who joined were wannabe Gawffs and so-called "Scene" drones who liked this stuff because of the "cute merch."

Amusingly enough, these people all seemed to think they were better than me. Any of them would look at my post record and denounce me as a "N008," not bothering to glance at the date I joined. Of course, they wouldn't know that I did my talking in private chats. Posting to the message boards irked me. Too slow.

I closed out of a chat with my best friend, Mira, and immediately the voice of my mom curdled through my bedroom door.

"Salem!"

Yes, through some miracle of creepy, my parents had decided to name me after the place where they met and were later married--it was a shotgun wedding, of course. Because my family is just that awesome.

I didn't respond, so mom tried again.

"Salem, dinner's ready! Get down here and set the table!"

I grinned and pushed my glasses back up on my nose. A click set my computer to Away, and I swiveled my chair away from the desk it sat on so I could extract myself from the pile of books and papers I'd accumulated into a fire hazard over the years. I tucked my black hair (dyed, because I'm not one of the ones fortunate enough to be born with it) securely behind my ears and undid the three locks on my solid-wood door. Never can be too careful, you know.

My mom scowled at my appearance when I finally did come downstairs. I could understand her irritation: I'd be pissed too if I was her looking at me. Paler than flour skin, black contact lenses, long-sleeved, high-collared black blouse and matching wide-legged trousers. No facial piercings or distasteful tattoos, but that blouse had once been powder blue. What has been dubbed the infamous "RIT affair" did not go over well with the powers that be, but at least it had saved me a shopping trip and given me something to do with the past three years' gifts from Grandma and Grandpa.

Again, I digress. I set the table like usual and sat down to yet another straight-from-the-box meal with my mother, father, and little brothers. The twins, as I called them (though in fact Thomas was two years older than William), chattered away about their days at grade school and how the bus driver went crazy and had to be replaced on short notice that afternoon. Nobody asked me how my day went, which was fine with me. I never really cared for small talk anyway. Then it was back to my room and into the depths of the Interweb for the rest of the night--or at least as much of the night as I could stand before I passed out at the keyboard.

While I'd been gone, an email arrived at one of my Hotmail accounts. I accessed it, recognizing the sender, and found a new mailer from the ESP. The subject was "Calling all Strangers," but that wasn't what really piqued my interest. What interested me was the time. 13:13. But I knew it had come while I was eating, and the clock read 18:35 when I'd gone downstairs. Either the sender was in a different time zone and my computer forgot to switch the times, or something weird was going on. I furrowed my brow and began to read.

_Attention, Strangers!_ it began. _So sorry to disturb you all this late. Though I guess for many of you, this would be early...at any rate, there IS good reason for this break in the scheduled flow of emails. All SOS members are urged to check in the members-only area of the Emily website for more information. Rest assured that new members will also be able to access these updates, so sign up if you haven't already! Live Strange. Emily._

Odd. That mod must have been in a hurry; that didn't sound like the usual mailers. I would've thought someone hacked into the account, but I knew from experience that the security on everything related to the site and the people who ran it was air-tight. I figured I'd better check the site to see what was up, and less than a second later, I was logged in.

At first, I didn't find anything odd. Nothing new under the SOS portion of the site. I was beginning to think that the account had indeed been hacked when I noticed a link on my profile page that I didn't remember adding. It was titled simply _Seeing_, and I clicked it without a moment's hesitation.

This brought me away from the member area and onto a page containing the details of an Emily product. I scrolled up and saw that it was her first book. There was another link at the bottom of this page, this one called _Is, _and I followed it at once.

I already knew what I'd find at the last page. _Deceiving, _the link at the bottom of the Oddisee page said. I smirked and clicked the link.

This page surprised me. It was completely black save for a section of white text and a bold ESP logo positioned perfectly in the center of the screen. The side menu for the site had disappeared, along with the links at the bottom and the usual copyright information. The only way to get off the page would be to close the window or hit the "back" button. But this thought could hold my interest for only so long. I scanned the text fervently, wondering what could warrant such clever measures.

_Emily finished wiring the latest addition to her Oddisee and lit a candle over the keyboard. The machine hummed to life, but something was missing. So Emily added the soul of a run-over rabbit to her newly-incorporated _Soul Power Generator_ and watched the silver haze spin round and round in the glass containment unit. The Oddisee whirred devilishly, and Emily started to work._

_"It's almost done," she said to herself more than her cats, who had dropped by to see what she was doing. "I wonder what I should add next?"_

I cocked an eyebrow at this little story. That was the great addition? A simple bit of prose like that was hardly worth my time. But then my mouse strayed below the text, and I accidentally clicked and dragged for a moment. This highlighted two letters: _St. _ I started and highlighted the rest of the hidden text, pulse quickening.

_Good work, Stranger. I wonder how many of you made it this far? Well, do forgive my misdirection. But to tell the truth, I wanted to weed out some of the lesser-worthy. I have something big planned, bigger than a book. Bigger than a cartoon or a movie. My Oddisee is almost complete, and that's when the REAL fun begins. If you want to know more, find me and riddle me this: What has Emily never searched for? _

_And I'll THINK about telling you. Maybe._

That was more like it.I grinned into my hand, a habit picked up from too many years of introducing random quirks into my behavioral patterns. This was going to be interesting.


	3. Two: A Night Out

((Author's Note: Call me odd, but I've made sure every bit of typing I do on this thing is done while listening to Rasputina. If you haven't yet, give them a listen. Cello rock and a sweet, angelic female voice singing about all kinds of spooky, macabre things. Anyway, I digress. What I wanted to say is that like everything else I post here--except for that Paranoia Agent fic and some of my poems--I've posted this all raw, so to speak. That means I haven't done any editing at ALL, save for a bit of necessary formatting so the fics are readable. The first couple chapters of this thing have gotten off to a weird start, I know, but I should be able to iron out the wrinkles within the next couple chapters and settle back into my typing groove. By the way, for a really, REALLY screwed-up song by Rasputina, listen to Dwarfstar. That is some creepy singy-spoken wordstuffs. But whatever. Take care, mes amis, and do enjoy. ::Raven:: ))

--Two: A Night Out--

Emily regretfully ditched her white Mary Jane shoes in favor of some black combat boots. The Mary Janes may have been easier to sneak around in, but she didn't want to get them dirty.

Even though the new boots felt odd, too heavy on her feet, she found herself smiling. Since she'd started working on her Oddisee, she'd had absolutely _no _time to go out roaming. And this would be the first time in a _long _time that she brought NeeChee along.

"Anyone interesting at the park lately?" she asked him as they scurried along rooftops in the last fading rays of sunlight.

NeeChee hadn't seen anything for awhile. But the park was a popular spot for teenagers to stage amorous encounters during their notorious "dinner and a movie" dates, and Emily pointed out that since it was a Saturday, they might be able to find something. They altered their course to bring them into the heart of the park, and they reached the copse of trees that marked the spot just after the city clock struck ten.

"Think we'll see anyone yet?" Emily asked once they'd settled into the tallest tree.

NeeChee noted that the official curfew on Saturdays was midnight for minors. Chances were no couples would think to stop by for another hour or so.

"So what do we do now?"

NeeChee voted to go to the all-night coffee house on the next block. Sitting in that tree was getting boring, so Emily seconded the motion and they vacated the park in record time. NeeChee caught a dove that was fluttering around and irritating them on the way. Emily looked away while he broke its neck and proceeded to tear it to shreds. You wouldn't think so, but NeeChee was quite the ferocious little kitty.

Emily got tired of the crunching and ordered him to drop the bird. He complied, and the carcass fell to the sidewalk and was brushed into the grass by NeeChee's tail.

"What'll it be, Em?" called the girl behind the counter as Emily and NeeChee entered the cafe a few minutes later. "The usual?"

"Yeah," she answered warmly, taking her usual seat in the back corner of the establishment. "And get NeeChee a cup of your strongest stuff."

NeeChee hissed, and Emily told the girl to add a bowl of hot milk to the order. Honestly. There was just no pleasing some people.

"Haven't seen you around for awhile, kiddo," announced the girl from the counter when she brought the order over. "You get into some trouble, Em?"

"No, just busy." Emily took a sip of her coffee. She knew the girl--Mimi--was getting paid to be nice to the customers, but she couldn't help feeling like Mimi was being honest when she smiled at her.

"Schoolwork?"

"No, a personal project." Emily smiled at her and was slightly disappointed with the amount of creepy that crept into the expression. "I'm actually just taking a break right now. The walls were starting to close in on me. But after I get a breather, I'm going straight back to work."

"Good to hear you're keeping yourself out of trouble," sighed Mimi. "You know, I was so wild when I was your age, I'm amazed I didn't get myself killed."

They went on talking like that for awhile, longer than it took for NeeChee to finish his drinks. And NeeChee took great delight in taking his time. At last, he gave Emily a poke with his claw and got her to notice that it was now half past eleven. She paid for their drinks and took a gracious exit, promising to come back soon.

"God, you're awfully cranky tonight," she muttered, rubbing at her arm where NeeChee had punctured the skin. "And _please _don't start with that 'God is dead' crap. We _all _know, believe me. Now let's just get back to the park and have some real fun, okay?"

To the pair's delight, a couple was already necking on a bench near the copse of trees when they got to the park. Emily hid in the shadows and sent NeeChee out as a scout. She waited with bated breath for his status report and his thoughts on the proper action plan.

As she'd suspected, the male was making all kinds of promises to the female in order to have his way with her. Emily, after a brief consul with NeeChee, decided to intervene before anything grotesque went down. She crept up to the bench and circled round to the front, made brazen by the obvious fact that the lovers were too busy to notice her. She grinned.

"He's lying, you know," she announced coolly.

The pair gave a unified yelp of surprise and tore away from each other. The female clutched some dark item of clothing over her chest while the male made some motion toward his waist. Emily spotted a silvery square next to him and laughed.

"Oh, God. He didn't already, did he?" she snorted, motioning to the unopened metallic packet. "Because you know you'll end up pregnant and HIV-positive."

"Who the hell do you think you are?" snapped the male, swiping the foil square off of the bench. "Where do you get off busting in on people like that?"

"I don't think walking up to you in a public park would qualify as 'busting in,'" laughed Emily before she turned to the female. "You should go on home. This guy is going to be nothing but trouble for you."

She nodded and hurried off, tugging her shirt back on as she disappeared into the night. Emily waited until she was sure the girl had gone. Then she gave NeeChee the signal, and he dove for the boy's calves.

Emily laughed and stuffed a rag in the teen's mouth to stop his screaming. _When Emily sees red, you see black and blue_ popped into her head, a silly little phrase from one of her books. Well, it _was _fitting. She gave him a nice little rabbit punch to the head, and he collapsed.

"Did you take care of the muscle?" she asked.

NeeChee licked his lips and assured her that the boy wouldn't be walking anytime soon. It was a shame that there was so much blood; the ground would absorb it with the help of a passing rain cloud, but anyone coming by in the next couple hours might find the stains odd. But Emily couldn't concern herself with that. She hefted the boy over her shoulder and trotted off towards home.

XEXSXPX

When the boy woke up, he was strapped into a chair in Emily's basement. Leaky pipes dripped water and steam onto the floor around him, and the skittering scuttling sounds of insects and spiders pressed in on all sides. Besides all that, it was pitch-black and he could hear someone breathing in front of him.

Suddenly, a bight light switched on and shone directly in his face. He squirmed frantically against his restraints but found to his horror that his legs were not responding to his orders. A flash of silver, and then the face of that creepy cat-girl came into view.

"Funny, isn't it?" she murmured, wielding a knife like the bow of a violin. "Your muscles won't let you kick. Then again, that's hardly a surprise, since I had NeeChee rip them apart. I'd imagine you'll be permanently crippled."

The boy tried to scream. But he found to his shock that, despite the lack of a gag, his efforts produced only a hollow rasp. He turned back to face Emily's dreamy gaze with tears in his eyes.

"Oh, that?" Emily giggled. "I also went and cut your vocal chords while you were out. It's a simple procedure, really. Sadistic pet owners do the same thing to keep their dogs from barking."

The boy was sobbing now, but Emily took no notice. She ran a finger along the edge of the knife and smiled at the thin line of blood that formed on her skin. Perfectly sharpened.

"Miles, is the Soul-OMatic ready?" she called into the darkness, and her smile widened when the reply was in the affirmative. "Now make sure to catch this one; I don't have the energy to get another tonight."

She stabbed the boy, of course. All you really need to stab someone is a pointy object, but Emily liked to make sure she could do some slicing in the abdomen. You know, just to liven things up a little. The teen made a terrible fuss, squirming about and doing that horrible raspy choke of his. When she tired of this, Emily put the knife through his skull to shut him up.

The blood trickled down the drains in the floor and ran to another room below. Once the flow of red subsided, though, the interesting bit began. Silvery wisps of what looked like fog emanated from the boy's wounds, most heavily concentrated in the chest. Emily sat back, breathing hard, and watched the wisps form a rough egg shape over the corpse. This was the critical moment.

Miles hopped into view, a machine that resembled a water pistol with a glass jar in place of its water tank in his paws. He managed to squeeze the trigger, and the egg of mist rushed into the machine and reappeared in the glass jar. Miles sealed the jar and removed it to present its contents to Emily.

"Very good," she murmured weakly, stroking him behind the ears. "All of you did very well. Tell Sabbath and Mystery to get the zonsters on cleaning up this carcass. I need to get some rest."

Emily shuffled her way up to the attic and pushed open the door to her room. Disregarding the cages of protesting pests on her desk and the caterwauling of the damned in her closet, she collapsed on the bed and fell into a deep sleep.

Killing people really takes a lot out of a girl...


End file.
